Honoree Profile: Janet Benshoof

Janet Benshoof is an internationally recognized human rights lawyer who has established landmark legal precedents on women's reproductive and equality rights and gender crimes. She has been named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and is the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of her singular contributions to advancing women's legal rights.

As president of the Global Justice Center,Benshoof is currently developing new legal tools to implement gender equality, focusing on transitional democracies and enforcing criminal accountability during conflict. As Director of the American Civil Liberties Reproductive Freedom Project for fifteen years (1977 to 1992), she spearheaded national litigation focusing on shaping Supreme Court jurisprudence on gender equality and reproductive choice.

In 1992 she founded the first international human rights organization specializing in reproductive choice and equality, now the Center for Reproductive Rights. In its first ten years, under her leadership CRR obtained consultative status to the UN, established legal projects in over 40 countries, and won major class action constitutional cases in the Supreme Court.

Since 2005 Benshoof has conducted three human-rights law trainings in Iraq, including a historic three-days on gender rights and international law for Iraqi women leaders and the judges of the Iraqi High Tribunal.This resulted in the first legal decision by a high court in the Middle East according women rights under international law.

In the precedential Anfal decision, the Iraqi High Tribunal adopted the gender-crimes standards of the International Criminal Court and held directors of the genocide guilty of rape, crimes against humanity, and torture. Benshoof has published numerous articles, appeared on international television and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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